Scottish Industrial History Vol 20 2000
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SCOTTISH INDUSTRIAL HISTORY Scotl21nd Business Archives Council of Scotland Scottish Charity Number SCO 02565 Volume20 The Business Archives Council of Scotland is grateful for the generous support given to this edition of Scottish Industrial History by United Distillers & Vintners SCOTTISH INDUSTRIAL HISTORY Volume20 B·A·C Scotl21nel Business Archives Council of Scotland Scorrish Choriry Number SCO 02565 Scottish Industrial History is published by the Business Archives Council of Scotland and covers all aspects of Scotland's industrial and commercial past on a local, regional and trans-national basis. Articles for future publication should be submitted to Simon Bennett, Honorary Editor, Scottish Industrial History, Archives & Business Records Centre, 77-87 Dumbarton Road, University of Glasgow Gll 6PE. Authors should apply for notes for contributors in the first instance. Back issues of Scottish Industrial History can be purchased and a list of titles of published articles can be obtained from the Honorary Editor or BACS web-site. Web-site: http://www.archives.gla.ac.uklbacs/default.html The views expressed in the journal are not necessarily those of the Business Archives Council of Scotland or those of the Honorary Editor. © 2000 Business Archives Council of Scotland and contributors. Cover illustrations Front: Advertisement Punch 1925- Johnnie Walker whisky [UDV archive] Back: Still room, Dalwhinnie Distillery 1904 [UDV archive] Printed by Universities Design & Print, University of Strathclyde 'Whisky Galore ' An Investigation of Our National Drink This edition is dedicated to the late Joan Auld, Archivist of the University of Dundee Scottish Industrial History Volume20 CONTENTS Page Scotch on the Records 8 Dr. R.B. Weir Distilling the Past 22 Christine Jones Dewar's: The Whisky of His Forefathers 37 Jacqui Seargeant A pioneer of the Spirit: Charles Cree Doig 47 C.S. McBain Reviews 52 About the Business Archives Council of Scotland 55 Scotch On The Records Dr. R.B. Weir University of York My interest in the history of the Scotch whisky industry was first aroused when I was an undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh, for what were essentially negative reasons. In the early 1960s courses in economics and economic history incorporated a respectable quantity of Scottish material. For example, in economics we studied regional economic policy, the thorny issue of whether separate national income accounts could be produced for Scotland, and the structure and development of the modern Scottish economy. The economic history syllabus included a term's lectures on the development of the Scottish economy since the Union of 1707 and on most other courses tutors cross referenced topics to Scottish experience. Over four years it was possible to become relatively knowledgeable about Scottish agriculture, Scottish banking, Scottish brewing, Scottish investment houses, Scottish shipbuilding, Scottish railways, Scottish engineering - and industries which never quite succeeded in coming to full fruition in Scotland; motor vehicles and aircraft being the prime examples. Amidst this coverage, there was one striking absence and that was the Scotch whisky industry. It was absent not just from the courses, but from most of the recommended texts. Indeed one had to go back to older texts such as W.H. Marwick's, Economic Development in Victorian Scotland (London 1936) to find references to the whisky industry. Several reasons have been suggested for this neglect of one of Scotland's staple industries. The first is that it was a legacy of the temperance movement: making money out of strong drink was an embarrassment and not a fit subject for legitimate scholarly enquiry. There may have been something in this. It was rumoured that one of Scotland's leading economic historians had a strong antipathy to drink, but one swallow does not make a summer, or indeed a sinner, and I never encountered other economic historians who shared the antipathy. It also made it difficult to account for the 8 inclusion of brewing. The second suggestion is that it reflected the contemporary preoccupation with the long-term causes of economic growth in which a limited range of core industries - coal, iron, railways - were seen as playing the leading role. In this intellectual construct consumer goods were the equivalent of the second row in the orchestra. This seemed ill conceived, not least when most studies of the industrial revolution emphasised the high proportion of income allocated to food and drink and the baneful social consequences of the heavy drinking that accompanied an industrialised, urban society. Could these features really be adequately considered without understanding the activities of drink manufacturers? Even a superficial view suggested that an increase in demand for drink would not have left the supplying industries unaltered. Moreover, the drink industries processed the products of agriculture so there were interesting questions about the relationships between distillers and farmers. Dissatisfaction with the existing bias towards heavy industry at the expense of consumer orientated industries was one reason for wishing to study the distilling industry. The third suggestion is that the blame for neglect of the whisky industry's history lay with the industry itself, the accusation being that it was secretive, suspicious of outsiders, and generally unwilling to open its records to historians. The major culprit here allegedly was the Distillers Company (DCL). In the 1960s it dominated the industry and was said to conceal its activities behind what one commentator described as 'a tartan curtain', a barrier to free enquiry as formidable as 'the iron curtain'. From an economist's perspective, however, this dominance was intriguing: how had the DCL acquired its pre-eminence and what were the consequences for the industry? Quite which of these suggestions best explained the neglect of the Scotch whisky industry remains uncertain; the availability of records suggests the fault did not lie with the industry. What was clear was that other characteristics of the Scotch whisky trade made its history worth studying. The industry was heavily engaged in exporting- and in the 1960s exporting was regarded as a particularly virtuous activity - how and when had the export trade developed? Certain brands were household names in this country and famous throughout the world: Buchanan's, 9 Dewar's, Walker's, Haig's, and White Horse - to name but five of DCL's brand portfolio. By the 1960s they were being challenged at home and abroad by the upstarts: Bell's, Teacher's, Cutty Sark, J&B, Chivas Regal, Ballantine's, and Whyte & Mackay. What marketing skills lay behind these famous names and what did they tell us about the quality of entrepreneurship? Finally, DCL was not just a major producer of Scotch whisky and gin it was also - still - a major chemical producer, a trade in which the Scottish economy was generally regarded as being weak. How had it managed to diversify? These then were some of the questions I had in mind when I first discussed the possibility of undertaking postgraduate research with the then head of Economic History at Edinburgh, Berrick Saul. His view was that the whisky industry was well worth tackling but only if access could be obtained to the records of the Distillers Company. DCL had dominated the industry for at least forty years, and a study that omitted DCL, would be a thin one indeed. The problem was Distiller's reputation for being secretive, insular, and arrogant. Fortunately, neither Berrick Saul nor my other supervisor, Chris Smout, took the reputation at face value. Instead, with the help and advice of a Jay member of the University Court who had business contacts at Distillers, they negotiated 'a gentlemen's agreement' with DCL's chairman and management committee. This gave access from 1877 until 1917, a terminal date which conformed with the fifty year rule then governing public records, but an insignificant date in DCL's history. An extension was later agreed to 1925, the year of 'The Big Amalgamation', when DCL acquired Buchanan-Dewar and Walker; the records of DCL's blending subsidiaries. Together with those of its non-potable subsidiaries, particularly the United Yeast Company and the Methylating Company were also made available. DCL's participation, and its contacts, were crucial in obtaining access to what were then described as 'the independents', including Arthur Bell & Sons and the North British Distillery Company, as well as the industry's two trade associations, the Malt Distillers' Association and the Scotch Whisky Association.; As it turned out, an unexpectedly large amount of material in public archives on the distilling industry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries meant that DCL figured less 10 prominently in my PhD thesis than had been anticipated. But what I had seen of DCL's records convinced me that its history merited separate treatment and that it ought to embrace the firm's diversification into the chemical industry.ii This required a later terminal date and in 1975 the management committee permitted access up to 1939. Access to post-1939 material came very much later- in 1998- after the publication of a history of the Distillers Company (1877-1939) and the acquisition by Guinness of the DCL.ii i Such then was the way in which I became involved with the history of the Scotch whisky industry. I would like now to turn to the three types of records relating to the industry's history (fable 1): Public records contain a formidable amount of material, much of which still remains to be thoroughly explored. The best listing of parliamentary material relating to the drink trade remains GB Wilson's, Alcohol and the Nation (London, 1940); it also contains an impressive array of statistical data.iv Anyone wishing to begin research on the history of the drink trades after c.1800 should start by consulting Wilson's book.